


Jamie's Angels in: Uninvited

by JohnAmendAll



Series: Jamie's Angels [3]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-23
Updated: 2011-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-15 00:14:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JohnAmendAll/pseuds/JohnAmendAll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone else is at the Christmas lunch. Donna's in the office on her own — at least, until a rather dubious plumber shows up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"I was told you'd be coming," Donna Noble said, pressing the button that unlocked the main office door.

"That's good," the plumber said. He was a little man, with a shock of greying hair, wearing a coat and checked trousers that seemed several sizes too big for him. "It's always nice to know there hasn't been any last-minute hitch in the arrangements, isn't it, Mrs..."

"Miss Noble." Donna led him to the reception desk. "If you could sign in here? And your colleague? And here's a couple of keycards so you can come and go as you like."

"Thank you." The plumber scrawled an illegible signature and handed the pen to his mate. "Sign your name there, Jamie. It looks as if we're the only people here today."

"You are, pretty much. Everyone's off at some hotel for the Christmas lunch. I'm just a temp they got in to answer the phone." She shrugged. "Not that it's needed much answering. Anyway, where do you want to start?"

"Well, I think we need to locate the main stopcock, don't we, Jamie?"

"You said we were looking for—" his mate began, only to be cut off by an elbow in the ribs.

"Yes, I know what I said, but we don't want to confuse Miss Noble with technical details, do we? Now, let's start looking. Is there a basement here?"

"Through that door," Donna said cautiously.

"Thank you. We'll try not to cause any unnecessary trouble."

Donna shrugged, and returned to her game of Freecell.

*

About a quarter of an hour later, during which time the only evidence of the plumbers' presence was various banging and crashing noises in the basement, Donna decided that it might be diplomatic to offer them a cup of tea or coffee. As she rose to her feet, though, that idea was driven from her mind by what she saw going on in the car park. Three young women were standing around some sort of antenna on a tripod, turning it this way and that. Cables ran from it to an elderly and dilapidated-looking van.

For a few moments, Donna stood, wondering what on earth to make of it all. Then she worked out what must be going on. This had to be some kind of hidden- camera show, and those girls were part of an outside broadcast team, trying to set up a satellite link. In which case, were the plumbers part of it, too? And was she, Donna, the intended butt of the joke?

Well, whether she was or not, people shouldn't be allowed to muck about on private property without permission. She pushed the door open and hurried across the car park.

"What's going on here?" she demanded.

The trio looked up.

"We're sorry for any intrusion," one of them said. She was a slight, dark-haired young lady, wearing a heavy anorak over a tweed jacket and trousers. "There's been a report of an electricity leak in this area, and we need to track it down."

Donna snorted. "Pull the other one. There's no such thing as an electricity leak."

"There is," the girl insisted. "Gia, can't you explain it to her?"

The woman who seemed to be in charge of the group straightened up. Tall, blonde, ponytailed and efficient, she looked coolly at Donna.

"If the insulation on a supply cable becomes corroded, it's possible for a leakage current to flow to ground through an alternate path," she said. "Depending what is on that path, it may cause damage or radio interference. We think this may be affecting one of the supply lines in the area."

The gadget on the tripod chose that moment to emit a complicated, almost musical warbling.

"Z minus five metres and locked," Gia said, reading off the display. "I hope we've set your mind at rest, Mrs..."

"Miss Noble. And no, you haven't. If you're from the electricity board, where's your ID? I want to see it."

"Told you she wouldn't believe us," said the third girl. Like the first, she was a short brunette, but that was the only point of similarity between them. Where her colleague had spoken politely, almost timidly, in tones that would not have disgraced a BBC announcer, this pronouncement had been delivered with utter conviction in a strong Liverpool accent. Instead of a sensible jacket and trousers, she was wearing high heels, a patterned minidress, and an absurd-looking green hat. Her makeup completed the picture; from head to toe, she was the complete Sixties dollybird.

"It's kindergarten electronics," Gia replied dismissively. "Anyone with a basic education should know about leakage currents."

"And you can stop talking my education down. I don't care how scientifically accurate your story is, people don't go looking for electricity leaks." The first girl tried to speak, but couldn't get a word in. "And don't you start, Victoria. I don't care if you did know Faraday or whoever it was, you haven't got a clue how to do these things."

"I wasn't going to say that," Victoria, if that was her name, said mildly. "I was merely going to remark that I wasn't the person who has just told Miss Noble, in so many words, that our cover story is a tissue of lies."

"Oh. I did, didn't I?" She looked up at Donna with a positively cheeky expression. "It's a fair cop. We aren't from the electricity board at all."

Though Donna would have died before letting anyone know it, she was momentarily lost for words. People hanging round in the car park up to no good were one thing, but when they freely admitted they were up to no good, that was another. Somehow, she felt as if she'd been outwitted.

"I'm giving you lot one last chance," she said. "Tell me what's going on here or I'm sending for the police."

"You wouldn't believe us," Gia said.

"Try me."

"All right. About three hundred years ago, an alien spaceship crash-landed somewhere round here..."

"You were right." Donna pulled out her mobile. "I don't believe you, and I'm calling the police right now." She took a few steps back, in case the intruders turned violent, and dialled 999.

Nothing happened.

She looked down at the telephone. No signal.

Furiously shoving the phone in her jacket pocket, she hurried back to the reception desk and its landline.

"I think that could have gone better," Victoria said.

"She wasn't gonna believe you." Samantha Briggs shook her head emphatically. "I told you it was a stupid story."

"Yes, yes, you did. Could you remind me again of the story we'd have been telling had you had your way?"

"At least some people believe in ley lines!" Samantha protested. "There was a chance she'd have been one of them. No-one could ever have believed we were from the electricity board."

"The point," Gia said, "is now she knows something's going on. We need to keep her out of harm's way somehow."

*

Back in the safety of the reception area, with a locked door between her and the three women outside, Donna lifted the telephone receiver. Instead of a dial tone, though, all she could hear was a low, rhythmic warbling, similar to the sound the machine outside had made.

She looked from the landline to her mobile and back. Something had cut off all communications with the outside world. A quick check on the computer she was using was sufficient to tell her that the Internet was down as well.

"Sod it," she muttered. She'd have to go across the road and use the payphone. All right, it would mean leaving her desk unattended for a few minutes, but she couldn't let people just park their vans on the company's property and talk nonsense about aliens.

At that moment, the door to the basement opened, revealing the plumber's young assistant.

"Jist got tae get a few things from the van," he said.

"Fine. Do you want tea or coffee or anything?"

"Some coffee would be nice. And d'ye have any biscuits?"

"I'll go and make some. Can I use the sink?"

"What? Oh, no, we've not done anything with the drains. But ye might want tae go easy on the hot water."

Mentally postponing her call to the police, Donna retreated to the kitchen and switched the coffee machine on. As if she wasn't feeling uneasy enough already, there was something else nagging at her mind. Something about that boy Jamie. Not the way he looked, but something about what he'd said to her just now. He'd wanted to get something from the van...

... But there was only one van in the car park. And it was the one those three girls were using for whatever it was.

Leaving the coffee machine to its own devices, Donna hurried back to the window of the reception area. Sure enough, Jamie was deep in conversation with all three of the trespassers.

Enough was enough. Donna returned to the kitchen, unlocked the window, opened it as wide as it would go, and scrambled out. On this side of the building, no-one in the car park could see her; she should be able to reach the public telephone unnoticed.


	2. Chapter 2

Of course, things weren't that easy. The telephone kiosk turned out to be occupied by a foreign tourist engaged in a long conversation, who despite Donna's best gesticulations and handwaving couldn't be persuaded to come out. Just as Donna had made up her mind to go in there and steal the handset from him by main force, her attention was caught by something else. Two more girls were making their way into the office car park.

She hurried across to confront them.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded. "This is private property."

"We're plumbers," the first one replied. "Weren't you told we were coming?"

Donna looked her up and down. She was, to give her her due, wearing dark blue overalls and heavy boots, and carrying a bulky bag. The long blonde hair seemed out of place, though, and would a plumber really be that elaborately made up?

"The plumber's already here," she said cautiously. "At least, there's a bloke here who says he's a plumber."

"Then he's an impostor."

"Look, I've had enough weird things happen today. You're trying to tell me you're a real plumber and the other bloke's a fake?"

"Are you saying that you don't believe a woman can be a plumber?" The colour rose in the woman's face. "That's a very anti-feminist attitude. You should be ashamed of yourself."

"Oh, shove it, Germaine," Donna retorted. "It's nothing to do with being a woman. You're not a plumber. Not with those fingernails. And your mate looks like a little girl playing dress-up in her dad's overalls. And I've never seen a plumber with eyelashes like that before." She looked from one to the other. "Why's everyone going around looking like they're from the Sixties today? Just like that Scouse girl... Exactly like her. You're all in this together, aren't you?"

"You've seen Samantha?"

"If that's her name. And the rest of your little gang. And I'm not putting up with it any longer. I'm supposed to be looking after this office today and I'm not letting you mess about."

"It's not us you have to worry about," the smaller faux-plumber said.

"You're going to start going on about aliens again, aren't you?"

"Well, if Sam's told you, why are you behaving so unreasonably?"

"Because I don't believe her. Or any of you. This has got to be some sort of elaborate practical joke." She looked around. "Come on, where are the cameras? And that bloke with the beard? There's always a bloke with a beard."

"This isn't a joke," the blonde said. "We're perfectly serious."

"I'm calling the police," Donna replied firmly. "Soon as I find a working phone."

"So you've noticed the communications interference?" the brunette asked.

"'Course I have. You're causing it, aren't you?" Donna made another mental connection. "It's that aerial thing in the car park. That's how you're doing it."

She set off for the car park, at the best speed she could manage. The other two exchanged glances, and followed her.

*

When Donna, gasping for breath, reached the van, she realised she was too late. The tripod was still there, but the cables lay on the ground. Of the complicated antenna and of its operators, there was no sign.

"All right," she said, as the two not-plumbers hurried up to join her. "I give in. Where are they?"

"They must have gone in," the blonde said. "We'd better see how they're getting on."

"You don't give up, do you?"

The brunette looked up at her. She had a smile on her face, as if she'd just had a good idea. Somehow, Donna didn't feel reassured.

"Are you responsible for this building?" she asked.

"Yes."

"So you wouldn't want us to damage it in any way?"

"What?"

"Then you'd better let us in. Otherwise we'll have to break in and that might cause some damage. We could try and knock the door down with the van."

"You're serious?"

"You'd better do what Zoë says," the blonde said. "I've seen her blow a receptionist to pieces just for giving her lip."

"That was a computer," Zoë pointed out. "I wouldn't have done it to a person."

The blonde covered her eyes in mock-despair. "I wasn't going to tell her that."

"Well, I'm not letting you go around making me out to be some sort of psychopath. My mental balance is stable to five decimal places."

Despite herself, Donna felt almost inclined to laugh.

"OK," she said. "I give in. You lot have got to be for real. No-one would pretend to be this daft. Come on, I'll let you in."

"Thank you, Mrs..."

"Miss Noble. Why does everyone think I'm a Mrs?"

"I haven't the least idea," the blonde said. "Pleased to meet you, Miss Noble. Isobel Turner." She grinned. "And I _am_ a Mrs."

"Zoë Heriot," her companion said. "I'm a Miss, if you're keeping track. Now, Miss Noble, we need to find out what our friends are doing in your office."

"Oh, call me Donna," Donna said, leading the way to the door. "And I'll tell you what. If there's anything in that office the least bit out of place, you lot are all going to be in a world of pain."

*

The reception area and the kitchen were pretty much as Donna had left them, though the coffee machine was half-empty and there had been considerable depredations on the plate of biscuits. Donna closed and relocked the window she'd left open, then led the way to the cellar door. As she opened it, the sounds drifting up the stairs were not encouraging; metal grating against concrete, occasionally leavened with bangs, crashes and exclamations of surprise.

Heedless of her companions, she rushed down the stairs and burst into the basement like an avenging angel. Her eyes took the scene in: the walls were lined with huge metal cabinets, each of which looked as though it weighed half a ton. Two of these had been opened — how, Donna didn't know, because there weren't any keys in evidence — and heaps of paper, which had presumably been inside, were stacked on the floor apparently at random. With the aid of crowbars, Jamie and the three girls she'd seen earlier were attempting to lever one of the open cabinets out of position, while the plumber, standing well back, was smiling beneficently, his hands clasped behind his back. The antenna Donna had seen earlier lay nearby, with a discarded look about it.

"What's going on here?" she demanded.

The activity came to a halt.

"Ah, Miss Noble," the plumber said. "Allow me to explain."

"If you're going to say you need to get at a pipe behind there, don't bother," Donna said. "You're not plumbers. I don't know quite what you are, but you're not plumbers." She looked at the trio she'd encountered earlier. "What you were saying earlier about an alien spaceship — is that true?"

"Yes," Gia said.

"It's behind this wall," Jamie added. "These three lassies found it wi' yon radio thing."

"You mean there really is an alien spaceship underneath the car park?" Donna gaped. "That is brilliant! Every time the aliens show up I'm always somewhere else or looking the other way. Well, not this time. Come on, let's get this stuff moved. I'm not missing this for the world."

*

Even with eight people, it wasn't a quick or easy process to drag the huge cabinets out of the way. In the basement wall, behind where they had stood, was a gleaming hatchway.

"That's been there all this time?" Isobel asked. "That doesn't make sense. This building's new."

"But on earlier foundations," the older man — whom the others all just called Doctor — explained. He reminded Donna of someone, though she couldn't put her finger on who that was. "And the ship clouds human perceptions. When people came to build a wall here, they'd have thought of it as just another part of the wall."

"But we can see it."

"Yes, the system must be running out of power. Not long now."

He thumped a panel beside the hatch. There was a momentary hesitation, and the hatch opened outwards. Beyond it, there appeared to be nothing but a dark void.

"Does anyone have a torch?" he asked.

As if on cue, Samantha handed him one.

"Don't follow me until I tell you," he said, and, ducking under the hatch, disappeared into the darkness.

To Donna, it seemed as if nobody moved, or breathed, for about five minutes. Then lights glimmered into life beyond the hatch, and there was a cheery call of "All clear!"

Jamie was first into the hatch. Donna followed him, along a cramped tunnel so low that she couldn't stand upright, lit by a glow that was overwhelmingly red. The corridor was definitely sloping down, and the floor wasn't level in the other direction either; she kept bumping into the wall on her right.

At the far end of the corridor was another hatch. Donna ducked through this, straightened up, and stared about herself in wonder.

The room was roughly oval, lit by the same red light as the corridor. All around the edges were angled panels, most of them black, but a few displaying readouts in shades of red or pink. Before them stood, not chairs, but spongy- looking cones. Overhead, the ceiling was a black dome, studded with clusters of glowing dots. Everything else was covered with a thick layer of dust. The red light made Donna think of electric fires, but in fact the air was cold and dry, with a faintly chemical smell.

"Excuse me," Victoria's voice said behind her. She hastily moved to one side, to allow the others in. One by one, they stopped and looked, some for longer than others. Gia, who was last, barely glanced around.

"Are we in time?" she asked.

The Doctor, who was peering at a panel he'd wiped clean of dust, nodded. "Just about. I'd say we've got three minutes before the engines detonate."


	3. Chapter 3

"Hang on!" Donna protested. "What's all this about detonating?"

"You didn't let us explain, did you?" Samantha said. "This ship crashed. Its engines have been running down ever since. When the fuel runs out, they'll seize up or something, and it won't be pretty."

"The process has started already," Zoë added. "Can you feel that vibration? That'll get worse and worse."

"Fortunately, all we have to do is shut the engines down properly," the Doctor said. "Then we won't have to worry about the explosion damaging your car park."

"Or the rest of Southern England," Samantha added.

Donna shuddered at the thought, imagining the chaos, the dead, the refugees. For a few seconds, the idea made her head spin, and she clutched at Jamie for support.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Just a dizzy spell." Donna shook her head, and felt better. "So can you sort it out?"

The Doctor tapped at his control panel. A row of pink lights began to blink, then, one by one, went out. At the same time, the vibration in the walls and floor faded away.

"There we are," he said.

"That's it?" Samantha asked. "We spent all day shifting furniture just so you could turn off a couple of switches?"

"The trick is knowing which switches to turn off," the Doctor replied, with a smile. "Now, all we have to do is—"

There was an ominous crack from overhead, and the air suddenly seemed to be full of dust.

"Run!" the Doctor shouted.

Getting out of the ship was a chaotic, undignified scramble, the clouds of dust blurring everyone's vision and making it hard to breathe. Donna, as one of the first in, was nearly the last out. When she reached the hatch, Isobel and Victoria pretty much had to pull her through it. She collapsed onto the basement floor until she'd got her breath back.

"What happened?" Zoë asked.

"I think yon ceiling was about to come down," Jamie said. "There were wee splinters falling... Doctor, are you all right?"

"I'm fine, Jamie. Is everyone here?"

"Aye, I counted them."

"But what happened?" Zoë repeated.

"I think the ship must have had a force field to maintain itself against outside pressures. Now I've turned the engines off, the force field is off, and it's beginning to distort."

"You mean the car park's going to fall in on top of it?" Isobel asked.

"I'm afraid so. Still, it'll be a very localised implosion. Nothing like as bad as it would have been otherwise."

Donna struggled to her feet. "No!"

"No what?"

"I'm supposed to be looking after this place today. What happens when they ask me why there's a great big crater in the car park? You promised you'd leave everything just as you found it."

"Sometimes the laws of physics mean that isn't an option," Gia said.

Donna grabbed her by the shoulders. "At least try and think of something!"

"There isn't anything in the ship that would help?" Victoria asked.

"You'd want to brace it somehow," Zoë said. "And quickly, before it collapses."

"You could fill it with concrete," Isobel suggested. "Except we haven't got any."

The Doctor snapped his fingers. "The thermal ballast tanks. They'll still be full of coolant."

"But if you empty the tanks into the rest of the ship, won't the tanks collapse instead?" Zoë asked.

"If I just emptied them, yes. But we could reduce the density, and add a curing agent..."

Zoë grinned broadly. "Foam!"

"Hang on," Donna said. "What are you going to do?"

"They blow air into the coolant tanks so the coolant becomes foam," Gia explained. "And add something that makes it set hard. Then they fill the ship with it. Then, when the foam sets, it should brace the ship and hopefully stop it collapsing."

Donna looked dubious. "I don't like it when people say 'should'."

*

The Doctor had insisted that it was too dangerous to let anyone else back into the spaceship, so once again the basement was full of companions, mostly too preoccupied to talk. 'Mostly', however, did not mean 'all'.

"Has anyone seen my hat?" Samantha asked.

"Were you wearing one?" Jamie said innocently.

Samantha mock-thumped him. "You know I was."

"What colour was it?"

"Green. And you know perfectly well I was wearing it, 'cos you said it looked like I was wearing a cabbage on my head."

"Oh, aye, that hat. You're not wearing it now."

"No, I'm not. It must have come off in that spaceship."

"Well, you can't go back for it."

"That hat was unique," Samantha grumbled. "I haven't seen anything like it in the shops since."

"There's probably a good reason for that," Victoria said teasingly.

"Oh, don't you start. It's bad enough when Isobel decides she knows what's in fashion and what isn't."

"I do," Isobel said. "It's part of my job."

"Oh, yeah? Says the girl in a boiler suit and boots." She gave a reluctant laugh. "Still, makes you look more like a proper feminist."

"Are you saying feminists are only feminists if they conform to some ill-informed stereotype of yours?"

"You come over here and say that again..."

Donna wandered over to Gia, who appeared to be (after herself) the oldest and most sensible member of the party. Though she didn't exactly have much competition on either front.

"Are they like this all the time?" she asked quietly.

Gia shrugged. "Mostly. It always amazes me that we manage to get anything done. But we usually do."

"Do you do this sort of thing a lot, then?"

"I suppose you could call us contractors. Well, subcontractors, really. Only the Doctor knows everything about the jobs we do."

Before Donna could reply, the Doctor appeared from the hatch, mopping his brow. In the momentary hush that fell, a bubbling noise could be heard within the spaceship, sounding as if it was rapidly coming closer.

"Did you see my hat anywhere in there?" Samantha asked.

"I'm afraid I didn't have time." The Doctor jumped down from the ramp, and pushed the panel that should have closed the hatch. Nothing happened. "Oh dear."

"What's the matter?" Victoria asked, jumping to her feet.

"With the power off, the door won't close. But if it's left open, the foam will come out in less than half a minute. It'll flood the basement and then set hard as rock."

"We'll have to close it by hand," Gia said. "Come on, everyone."

It took all eight of them to force the hatch closed, and they were still pushing against it when the foam reached it. For a few seconds it frothed around the edge of the hatch and ran down the wall in green rivulets; then it seemed to harden into immobility.

"I think we can let go now," the Doctor said cautiously. "One by one, just to be sure. And take care not to touch the foam; it's acidic. You first, Victoria."

In turn, each of them stopped pushing and stepped back. The hatch remained closed.

"There," the Doctor said. "All ship-shape and Bristol fashion. What do you think?"

"It seems a pity," Donna said. "That's the first alien thing I've ever seen. And now I'm never going to see it again. No-one is."

"Look on the bright side," Jamie said. "No-one's going to ask about a big hole in your car park, because there won't be one."

"That's true." Donna looked around the room. "Now, before any of you lot get any ideas about sneaking off with the job half-done, I want these cabinets back against the wall and all those files you've tipped out put back. And in the proper order, 'cos I'll check. And I don't know how you unlocked them..."

Victoria raised her hand. "I picked the locks."

"Well, you can just unpick them. You leave this room as you found it. Is that clear?"

The Doctor theatrically rolled up his sleeves. "Definitely."

"Good. I'm going to get cleaned up, and then see if anyone's left any messages while the phones were out."

She took her leave. The remaining seven exchanged glances.

"And she's a temp?" Samantha said, when she was sure Donna was out of earshot.

Isobel giggled. "Makes you wonder what the permanent staff are like."

*

Donna hadn't been able to relax completely until the Doctor and his troupe of embodiments of chaos had tidied the basement to her satisfaction, handed back their passcards, signed the register again, and taken themselves and their van away. She fancied that her relief at getting shot of them was matched by their relief at getting away from her. In the case of Victoria in particular, she was sure of it.

She was just rounding off her day by tidying the kitchen, when she heard the main door open again. She returned to her post at reception, to find the firm's proper receptionist, wearing a paper hat and carrying a bag.

"We're back," she said.

Donna nodded. "So I see. How was the party?"

"Oh, the usual thing. Bob from Accounts tried to get me under the mistletoe."

"I hope you gave him what for."

"Well, I don't think he'll try it on with me again. They were giving out chocolates, so I grabbed a box for you." She handed the bag over. "Thanks for holding the fort. How was it here? Any messages?"

Donna pointed to the notepad she'd been using. "Not a lot. The phone was on the blink all morning."

"Yeah, it keeps doing that. We need to get it looked at. Did anything else happen?"

Despite herself, Donna couldn't help smiling. "Nothing I couldn't handle."


End file.
